Saturday, the Second Half of Digital Detox

When we arrived home from cutting wood, Husband exhaustedly said "Let's just see what's on tv"...and then realized what he had just said as he went to turn the tv on.

While we waited for Jake to grill his famous cheeseburgers, S4 killed time for us doing animal charades.  He was absolutely hilarious.  Do you know how many different birds the boy knows?  Do you know how many guesses we had to come up with think of all the bird names?

And the best part was that S4 started the animal charades from telling us he loves pimple dogs.

Huh?

It took us awhile to figure out he meant PIT bulls.  

That would have been a great tweet/facebook post.

After a scrumptious dinner, we headed out to make cider.

The neighbors on the other side of us raise apples.  And if you come over and help them press cider, you get to bring some home.  This works great for us.

The boys immediately run for the hay bales, where they run and jump and have all sorts of fun.

Meanwhile, Husband gets to work making cider with the crew in the back of the tiny cider room.

The apples are dropped into a grinder and literally ground all up.  The apples are then dropped into the tin bucket.

Then it's sent into buckets....

Where it is dumped onto the press's heavy duty cheese cloth type material, where it pressed until it makes juice that we all love.

Here it is beginning to be pressed.

Jake told me to tell you it's like a snow plow motor, just keeps pushing up.  He figures the guys will understand this.  All I can tell you is it OUD and the shorter the tower becomes, the more juice you get until there is no more.

The room is so tight, it's hard to get any great pictures of anything that is going on.  The guy in the yellow rain pants heads up the operation.  It was his brother in law who started this tradition....it was his brother in law who died suddenly this year.

So this year with all the kids around making cider with neighbors was bittersweet.

The old man in the John Deere hat...I have no idea who he is but he is ALWAYS there.  And he has the strongest accent (Dutch maybe) and we just love to hear him talk.  I have never seen him not smile.

Here is the beautiful wonderful cider coming out of the press!

It's then run through something or another to this barrel, where only the man in the yellow pants is allowed to touch the cider or pour the cider.  Everyone brings their own jugs to get filled up.

Everyone loves cider time in our little farming neighborhood.

But you recall all we did earlier today, correct?  The seven loads of wood?

Yah, all that work and the cider had caught up with us.  It was all we could do to stay awake for showers and baths so we could get to our beds and pass out from exhaustion.

It was only 9:30 at night when we were all tucked into bed.

And that cuddle time hubs had promised me the day before?

Never happened.

There's always tomorrow.....

Our Story Airs on Fox 17's 10 pm News on Tuesday, November 15th.

Saturday, the Second Day of Digital Detox

Saturday dawned too early.

Way too early.

Because we went to bed early, the boys got up early.

And since they couldn't watch tv, they all - yes, all four - crawled into bed with us.

That cuddle time Hubs and I were looking forward to?  Gone.

Even when he tried to shoo them from the room with "Why don't you go do something - like homework?"

 You know they were all jumping over that idea.

Knowing I would have a flipcam on me during the day at some point, I decided I'd better do the whole makeup thing.  And since I had FOUR BUSHEL of pears to can, I figured I had better do the hair up today too.

Before I could do any of that though, Hubs thought it would be fun to flip cam me right away.

He's so sweet like that.

For breakfast, we all sat around and looked at the newspaper.  We were ecstatic with it's arrival.

That has never happened before.

We searched weather and news and sports...and comics, of course.

We are news geeks, we have concluded, as well as comic nerds.

We totally rock.

 When we found my husband's missing wood cutting helmet in my crock pot - no joke - I knew I would need much much coffee on this day.

 I also found out that with no distractions, little things irritate you more.  That said, you deal with them right away...and then it's over and life is sunny happy again.  It's an amazing thing.

Hubs and the boys loaded up and headed out to cut wood while I started on the first load of pears.

 I wrote this "The boys are all cutting wood with Jake.  The silence is deafening.  I can hear every click of the stove top, the fan running on low in the other room, the dogs steady snore, the chirps of the birds outside, the scratch of the chickens, the passing gof the vehicles by the house. The silence is deafening and the click click of the clock seems mocking."

I guess I don't do alone well.  I grew up in a loud house.  I have had a hard time adjusting to the boys all being in school.  If I'm home, the Pandora is on or the tv.  The empty house bothered me.  A lot.

I heard the squeak of the mail lady's breaks and here she drove up the driveway, delivering a gift from Rebecca in Texas.  I nearly cried.  Her gift could NOT have been any better timing.

Silence does weird things to you.

I started writing down the texts I would send my mom if I could...like "I miss you" and "I need cinnamon" and "did you buy bulk allspice".  I think in spices, I guess.

When hubs arrived with a load of wood, he had to snap a few pictures, thinking me adorable.

He's sweet like that.

When the one canner load of pears was done (finally), I had baked a cake and loaded up all the baked goods I could find in the house and drove over to meet the boys cutting wood with my neighbors.

It was odd to try to try to connect minus us being able to friend request on facebook or show off the blog.  It was awkward odd.  When she asked for the apple pie recipe, I had to write it down by hand and hand deliver it to her.

That said, Michele and Rod kicked butt helping us load wood - SEVEN truck loads of wood we hauled home and added to our pile.  SEVEN.

And we had a great time getting to know them more.

Sometimes, maybe a hand written note is better than any facebook message.

Our Story Airs on Fox 17's news at 10pm on Tuesday,  November 15th.


You can view the story HERE. 

Cuttin Wood...

I am supposed to be over at Praise and Coffee today but I didn't get to writing that article and I hope that if I arrive with cookies Sue will forgive me and next week you can find me over there.

The reason I didn't is because over the weekend I was too tired to write...and if I did have a burst of energy, my fingertips were too sore to type.

Seriously.

Over the weekend I helped my hubby cut firewood. Now, as I kiddo I used to do this with my Dad and siblings. We would get a clear cut and go in and cut all the wood and haul it up hills to fill a truck that would be overflowing with wood and slowly drive it home where we would then fill our basement for our years worth of wood (that part of the basement is now where my boys play and sleep when they visit, this is astounding to me) and then when that was full we would stack it up and sell cords and ricks of wood.

So when we got our outdoor wood burner to heat our house and hot water, hubby was sure I'd be great help. He had married him a wood cuttin gal.

Except we kept having kids........so I have never helped him cut wood. I have, however, filled the wood stove many many times. But out in the woods cutting wood with him? Never.

But this weekend he had to get some wood, it was sorta an emergency gather, and asked if I would help.

The first load of wood really wasn't too bad. And I have to admit, smelling that wonderful red oak smell of fresh chopped wood and hearing the two youngest boys playing in the woods building forts made me think fondly of my wood cutting days with my Dad and siblings.
Here I am, after the first load of wood. This was our small load.

When we got this loaded, hubby and our super great neighbor who just likes to throw wood (really???? just enjoys all that hard work??? Thank you a million times over T!) I was rushing around getting lunch for everyone and then getting more cold drinks, getting snacks, getting laundry on the line and getting the tomatoes stocked on the stand.

And then all six of us headed out to get the big log out in the deep, beautiful woods. This log had fallen, blocking the road, and we were called to remove it. I love the woods we were at, my creative mind goes into over drive as the boys and I explored as Hubs was cutting up the wood. I can't stress it enough, these woods are BEAUTIFUL.

(this pic is especially for the Farmers Wife, who has ONE tree on her ranch)

Here is my super strong Ax Man chopping up the logs for us to fill the trailer with. We worked until dinner time and got the trailer fully loaded. S4 came up with some interesting music, a variation of Buffalo Bob and Michigan Man from Michigan Outdoors and with S3 as his guitar player stick player and serenaded us all afternoon. ALL. AFTERNOON.

Our two oldest were so tired from a sleepover they could hardly keep their eyes open. And then they were starving so they had to share a peanut butter sandwich and some cookies...which they devoured.

And I got to watch my husband chop and cut wood up and was amazed - again - at his immense strength.

But when we got home and our terrific neighbor T helped unload the wood again and I got dinner started I realized I couldn't feel my fingertips.

The next day, Sunday, I nodded off in church a bit.

I came home Sunday, served the family dinner, fell on our bed and slept for three solid hours.

Apparently, I am a wimp.

But I am a wimp that truly had a great time spending time with my family out in the woods.